"The Emperor of the kingdom dolorous [...] Well may proceed from him all tribulation." —Inferno, canto 34

Here at least we shall be free; the Almighty hath not built here for his envy, will not drive us hence: Here we may reign secure, and in my choice to reign is worth ambition, though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.

Satan is the Bigger Bad or Big Bad of most varieties of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and a fair amount of fiction with religious influences. In some cases, he is considered a "Master" Bad—the single most evil being in existence, period.

No matter what version of Satan is employed, he is usually a shapechanger, capable of taking any form—physical or not—that he cares to. In human form, he is often shown with red or blond hair. His true form is often that of a Big Red Devil. All things that hide or distort the truth are in his province, making him also the master of deception and illusion. Consequently, his most common incarnations are wheeler-dealers, bargainers, and con-men.

Despite an overwhelming overconfidence (he represents the Deadly Sin of Pride, after allnote Interestingly, Satan is often portrayed in various mediums more than God), he almost always possesses a keen sense of enlightened self-interest. In keeping with the belief of the "most beautiful angel" who fell, Satan takes a handsome face whenever possible, but behind it is often rage and hatred; tearing away that mask, either intentionally or not, is possibly one of the most suicidal things a character can do.

In his more modern incarnations, he is often a Man of Wealth and Taste with a taste for the offerings of humanity's cultural achievements, from wine to music to poetry and stories. His interpretations do not always accord with the official ones. Despite this however, Satan is usually shown—for all his enjoyment of the finer things—to have a pathological hatred of humanity, blaming them for stealing the rightful place of the angels as God's children.

One of his favorite ploys (it's at least Older Than Steam, as seen in Faust and earlier) is to essentially grant one or more wishes in exchange for the wisher's soul. It's a classic lopsided deal in the Devil's favor—short-term corporeal gain in exchange for long-term infernal torment. This is almost always handled via a physical contract which is usually composed entirely of torturous legalese. Single wishes are almost always handled Literal Genie style, if not perverted outright. In some versions of the story the contracted victim may be able to free himself via a redemptive act or the intervention of God; in modern takes, especially Super Hero comics, the hero may take revenge against the Devil via a Faustian Rebellion. In any case, his goal is to lure as many souls to his side as possible, making him an example of The Corrupter.

In recent depictions, Satan is sometimes subverted by giving him an unexpected soft spot that renders him a bit more "human" and less supernatural—he likes kittens, or snowcones for example. It doesn't make him any less dangerous (if he's dangerous at all); it just lets the audience think they understand him.

Satan is traditionally associated with a host of archdemonic sidekicks, among the best known of which are Mephistopheles, Azazel, Belial, Moloch, Baal, Asmodeus, Beelzebub, and Lilith. These are sometimes seen as servants of Satan (often with more effective power over humans, presumably because their actions are not so closely watched), but are also (with the obvious exception of Lilith) often conflated into alternate names for the same being. Most of these names, as with "Lucifer", derive from supernatural figures from pre-Christian beliefs in Europe, who were changed into devils as the new faith took over.

Remember, this trope is about the use of Satan as a Public Domain Character. If the character shares several significant features with him but isn't at least implied to be the Biblical Devil, they go under Satanic Archetype.

Examples:

Ah! My Goddess had Hild, the CEO of Hell. She's the mother to Belldandy's half-sister Urd. Their father is God.

An important part of the plot of Angel Sanctuary is the attempts by high demons to resurrect Lucifer. His generals are called the Satans and all bear names such as Asmodeus, Belial, Astaroth etc. Lucifer himself is actually on the good side, in the end—although he does do a lot of crap.

The manga version of Bastard eventually brings in Christian cosmology, with angels, devils, etc. The main character, Dark Schneider, has been known to fight against both. Satan himself makes a major appearance, and is hinted at being the eventual Big Bad. Interestingly, Satan and Lucifer are two separate beings in the story.

In Beelzebub, Satan and Lucifer are two distinctly different beings (Satan's appearance being depicted as that of a young male, Lucifer's being that of a little girl), but are part of the same group of demons—the Seven Sin Lords, who were the rulers of distinct kingdoms in the Demon World before it was united under Baby Beel's father, the Demon King aka Beelzebub III. Beel is also part of this group, being the latest demon to inherit the name "Beelzebub." Both Satan and Lucifer are contracted to the two strongest members of the Ishiyama Upstarts, Fuji and Takamiya, in opposition of Oga and Beel, with the entire conflict risking the possibility of a new war erupting in the Demon World. While Takamiya has been defeated and allied with Oga, Fuji has proven himself to be uncontrollable and a dangerous threat, causing an Enemy Mine with the entire school standing against him as he begins petrifying everyone.

In DevilmanRyo Asuka is revealed to be Satan as well as a Hermaphrodite with angel wings. Nagai considering it appropriate due to being an angel, who are often considered sexless.

Although not a Satan Zenon◊ has a similar look to The Divine Comedy Version, being a demon with 3 faces, and in The Devil Lady Manga he is trapped in the Ninth Circle of Hell just like the Divine Comedy's Satan He also has a form that looks like The Dragon of Revelation

In Mobile Fighter G Gundam there's the Devil Gundam. At first it doesn't seem all that demonic, but as the series progresses and the machine is shown to have a will of its own, a vendetta against mankind, a tendency to corrupt everyone it comes in contact with, and at the grand finale is said to run off of negative emotions, it becomes a lot more obvious.

Although never making a direct appearance Satan is a big part of Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne. It turns out that Maron is actually working for Satan and not God when she collects the demons in paintings. She finds out too late to prevent Satan's overthrow of Heaven. Or so it seems ...

In My Balls, Satan is a female nymphomaniac and sex expert who has both the power of light and darkness in her. She later hooks up with Michael and becomes an angel again.

It seems that in Princess Lucia, Satan lost his place in Hell and owns a ramen stand.

Saint Seiya. Lucifer is the Big Bad of fourth (non-canon) movie. In his backstory was considered in the kingdom of heaven to be the most beautiful and powerful sentient being after the Creator himself. Because of this, he developed pride and lust for domination upon all of creation, and declared war on its Creator. He was subsequently defeated, and then banished from heaven along with his followers. He is defeated also by the archangel Gabriel, helped by Athena and the eastern god Marishitien. He feels a grudge against Athena and allies with other Gods for kill her and take over the world.

In The Demon Ororon, Hell is a dimension ruled by kings who pass down the title of Satan from father to son. Which, if any, is THE Satan is unknown.

Hell, all seven could count, since they're all named after the horned one. There's also Lucifer (Pride), Leviathan (Envy), Belpehegor (Sloth), Mammon (Greed), Beelzebub (Gluttony) and Asmodeus (Lust), in order of how old they are.

Card Games

Infernoid Shaitan in the Yu-Gi-Oh! OCG is based on Satan. In fact, its effects could be a reflection of Satan's actions in the Book of Job. In the Book of Job, Satan challenged God that Job (a pious man with a righteous life) would turn from God if he were allowed to plague the man undeterred by God's protection. Job had his possessions and wealth stripped from him and his family killed by plague, but stayed faithful. In a similar fashion, Infernoid Shaitan strips the opponent of their "niceties" by throwing their Set cards back to the deck– disregarding the "protection" of their other effects.

Comic Books

Comic book example/subversion: Lucifer appears in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman series, initially as a one-off villain, but later in the series, he grows tired of ruling Hell and being humanity's scapegoat ("How can anyone own a soul?"), and resigns; Hell is then placed directly under "The Silver City"'s command.

Sandman formed the basis for his own series Lucifer a decade later, in which he's sort of but not quite an Anti-Hero. He appears as a blonde, handsome angel, with no hint of the demonic, except for bat wings—which he loses when he retires—and two tufts of hair intended to resemble horns. (He is referred to as "Satan" only once across both series, and that by a guy who wanted to make a Deal with the Devil and really didn't get it.)

Hellblazer: Satan and Lucifer are two different entities (as it was originally written in demonology [1]). Hell is run, after the departure of Lucifer, by Satan (known here as the First Of The Fallen). It is suggested that The First is the original Adversary, that he was created to hold God's own negative qualities and/or as a "best enemy" to God (as in some East European dualist mythologies) and that he knows some horrible secret about God, Jesus and the Church which, if confessed to a mortal, would send that mortal howling mad. John Constantine claims that he is God's former conscience. The First looks human, big and tough, wearing a dinner suit and cape, with a broken nose and long hair. He is addressed as "Lord Satan" by Gabriel on one occasion. John met the First while the devil was trying to collect the soul of one of John's friends. It didn't go well for the First.

The First of the Fallen initially shares his rule with the Second of the Three and the Third of the Three, who are similarly nasty. The Second appears as a living darkness, and the Third never appears as any one thing for long—he's a shapeshifter who constantly changes forms according to purpose, mood, or just for the fun of it, and it's implied he doesn't actually have a true form. They don't appear as often, though. Partly because they're killed shortly after they're introduced.

Several characters in The DCU are a good match for Mr. S. There's Neron, who ruled Hell for a while and, as the main villain of the Crisis CrossoverUnderworld Unleashed bought the souls of many supervillains, as well as killing the Rogues and Mongulto show how cool he is; Lord Satanus, who began as a human sorcerer yet grew powerful enough to kick Neron out; and his sister Blaze, who kicked him out in return. The most likely candidate to be the real deal is The Original Darkness, an Eldritch Abomination encountered by Swamp Thing, whose mere presence can kill several powerful sorcerers and whose fingernail couldn't be cracked by The Spectre. Finally, in the New 52 Lucifer appears as a villain in Demon Knights. In Batman RIP numerous characters imply or outright state that Simon Hurt is the Devil. Batman himself wonders this at the end. It is ultimately revealed that he is not.

There's a number of demons in Marvel Comics, most famously Mephisto, who have at one point or another claimed to be Satan. Fear Itself reveals that Satan—the real Satan, not the other demons who occasionally pretend to be him—has been missing for so long that many demons believe he never existed in the first place. The demons in the Marvel 'verse hold meetings around Satan's throne. None of them dare claim it for themselves, for fear of being torn apart by the others or worse, provoking Satan to return.

The real Lucifer (different from Satan) showed up in one Ghost Rider story claiming to be the one Johnny made a deal with and not Mephisto. He is one of several hell-lords, but unlike them cannot leave Hell on his own. He tricked Blaze into freeing him from hell to try and destroy the Earth, but quickly proved himself to be less then one hoped by being constantly outwitted by Blaze, who himself states he is something of an idiot.

The Devil appears briefly in Preacher, where he is in charge of Hell and follows the stereotypical red-skinned, horned and hooved depiction. He is seen playing cards with the Angel of Death and is called Nick. When the to-be Saint of Killers freezes Hell with his hate, Nick attempts to whip the hatred out but fails. After the to-be Saint accepts his new role, Nick insults the Saint and gets a fatal round through the head for the effort.

Satan in the form of "El Diablo" pops up to show Johnny around Hell after his death in Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. Though he rules Hell, he doesn't seem to do much other than watch (with glee) the souls of the damned go about their superficial afterlives. He shows up again in Squee as the happy husband of an oblivious Catholic woman with whom he's fathered a son, Pepito. Pepito becomes the closest thing Squee has to a friend.

Another version of Satan shows up out of continuity in one of the Meanwhiles, where Jhonen, in an attempt to demonstrate how dissimilar his life is to Nny's after being accused of Author Avatar one to many times, shows us what an average day is for him. In a scene that (deliberately) mirrors an early JTHM issue, he arrives at a convenience store to get a slushy and picks a fight with the clerk. He then goads the clerk into admitting to be Satan, turns out to be correct, and blasts Satan with a laser when Satan threatens to bite his head off.

Jack Chick has put Satan into the Chick Tracts so often you'd think he was a regular. Satan, when shown, ends up being more of a general trickster than a real force of pure evil.

A demonic character shows up in Powers claiming to be the devil, but the protagonist is more inclined to thinking it's a minor demon trying to make itself seem bigger and more important than it really is. It's still a powerful, nasty, Hannibal Lecturing creature.

In Magnus, Lucifer is a literal Physical God who can be physically confronted and battled.

Satan is notably absent from the Hellboy universe, but he is finally mentioned in The Wild Hunt. It turns out he's been sleeping beneath the city of Pandemonium and Hellboy is destined to murder him and overthrow all his princes and generals.

A classic Strontium Dog story involved Johnny, Wulf, and the Gronk following a renegade Bounty Hunter named Fly's Eye's into a Hell-dimension, where they had to beat up Satan himself in order to escape. It turns out that Satan is actually a human who invented a device to enable travel between dimensions, but was horribly burned and scarred when an experiment went out of control. Shunned and rejected by the rest of humanity, he retreated to an empty universe shaped by his own will, and out of bitterness, he made it into a Fire and Brimstone Hell to torment anybody else who might wander in.

In Necrophim, Lucifer takes the form of a human with a forked tongue dressed in Edwardian English fashion. He mostly just wants to keep hold of his reign in Hell.

In Dilbert, there's Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light and supreme ruler of Heck.

Appears in some stories by Wilhelm Busch, to take the (not so) pious Helene's soul to hell for example.

Spawn comics introduced Satan only briefly. He is the brother of God and was the original creator/ruler of Hell before being removed by his "Mother." God and Satan were two of a nearly infinite number of nigh-omnipotent beings created by the "true" God to help build worlds. They got Earth and, unwilling to share, fought over it, with God creating Heaven and Satan creating Hell, viewing humans as playthings in their wars. Out of disgust their Mother removed them from their thrones to try and give humanity a chance until Armageddon came. Both are evil, petty creatures. Ironically, Satan granted humans free will to spite God only for that to be what gives humanity the chance to free itself from both heaven and hell.

In the 24-issue limited series Crimson, Lucifer appears as a dapper blond man, handsome and wearing all white. He converses with God in a very cordial way and the two appear to have more of a "friendly rival" relationship. However, there are also undertones of Lucifer still wanting The Throne.

Anderson: Psi-Division: Judge Anderson once faced off with an nigh-omnipotent space-travelling entity which identified itself as Satan. After revealing its omnicidal harvests across the galaxy and its intent to destroy all life on Earth, it offered Anderson to join him as his herald. Satan was in fact borderline insane and lonely, and self-destructed when Anderson planted the seeds of doubt in him.

Fanfiction

In Manchester Lost, he is a menacing figure who mostly considers the archangels to be idiots (Raphael: too nice, Michael: too boneheaded, Uriel: completely out of it most of the time) with the possible exception of Gabriel. There is a great deal of Foe Yay between him and Michael and in the sequel he and Gabriel work out a custody agreement for Michael. This is somewhat unnerving since he had recently killed Michael in a 3 way battle with Michael against Satan and the new Anti Christ.

In Sonic X: Dark Chaos, Lord Maledict is the titular Devil. Ruler of the Demon Empire, he's also the maker of the Chaos Emeralds, and helped create the entire universe. He also is the one who created Sonic the Hedgehog.

Films—Animated

Fantasia: The large demon of the "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence, Chernabog, was originally noted by Walt Disney himself, as well as Deems Taylor in the roadshow footage, as being Satan himself. Disney hired Bela Lugosi to come and be filmed as a model for this scene. They photographed him in his cape to capture his movements, flourishes, facial expressions and signature hand gestures to bring their Satan to life.

One of the most bizarre and terrifying depictions of Satan (though, if it is true to its original material, it is Satan's nephew, and not Satan himself) occurs in The Adventures of Mark Twain, a claymation film ostensibly intended for children. The segment is based on Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger.

King of Kings depicted Satan as a disembodied voice during the temptation of Jesus in the desert. The 1979 Jesus film did so as well.

In The Greatest Story Ever Told, Donald Pleasence portrayed Satan as a "Dark Hermit" who tempts Jesus in a mountain cave. Later, he helps stir up a crowd to proclaim Jesus king, forcing Jesus to escape; Judas passes by him on the street when he goes to betray Jesus; he makes Peter deny Jesus; finally he leads the crowd in calling for Jesus's death.

In The Last Temptation of Christ, Satan appears to Jesus in the desert as a talking snake, a talking lion, and a talking pillar of fire. Later when Jesus is crucified and the titular Last Temptation happens, Satan appears as an angel in the form of a young girl and finally as the pillar of fire again.

The 1999 television movie Jesus had Satan played by Jeroen Krabbe in a modern suit and tie and a female model in red. The male Satan is more prominent, and he tries to dissuade Jesus by showing future events like the Crusades.

Satan appears as an androgynous person (portrayed by a female actress) in The Passion of the Christ. Notable for three scenes: the initial temptation of Jesus in the beginning of the film, a truly disturbing scene during Jesus's torture where Satan is seen cradling a demonic baby, in a mockery of the Virgin Mary, and a shot of Satan screaming in Hell, enraged at Jesus' sacrifice for humanity's sins and spiritual triumph.

In The Ninth Gate, Johnny Depp looks for a book cowritten by Satan, is stalked by a (female) Satan who helps him on his quest, and then later screws her for immortal power.

Two of a Kind (the second John Travolta/Olivia Newton-John vehicle) featured a Sodom-and-Gomorrah plot, with God about to destroy the earth and bring all humanity into heaven unless a small band of angels can make two people (Travolta and Newton-John) fall in love with each other. The Devil hassles the angels throughout most of the film, until the nature of God's challenge is explained to him...

Seraphim Falls: The snake oil saleswoman played by Anjelica Huston appears out of nowhere in the desert to tempt both protagonists. As her wagon rolls away we see her full name written on the back: Louise C. Faire.

The "Louis Cypher" joke was done in Angel Heart, in which Robert DeNiro played the role. In one scene, he remarks that in many cultures eggs are seen as a metaphor for the soul. He then promptly devours one.

In O Brother, Where Art Thou??, the Devil appears as a white Bounty Hunter with a hound dog and sunglasses that are always reflecting firelight. Before the start of the film, he gives Tommy Johnson the ability to play guitar "real good" in exchange for his soul. Throughout the movie, he hunts Ulysses and his group.

Bedazzled (1967), the Devil is more in line with the Book of Job version, in which it's his/her job to test humanity with sin. Peter Cook plays the role as a Deadpan Snarker and a Trickster, while Elizabeth Hurley plays a seductress in the remake. Both seem to enjoy their job a lot.

Lucifer is played with a chilling, vicious malevolence by Viggo Mortensen in The Prophecy. Here he is an uneasy ally to the protagonists, but he makes it clear that he's helping them for entirely self-serving reasons, not for their benefit. Mortenson actually manages to out-creep Christopher Walken. While they share a scene.

Lucifer: [hissing to the main characters while chewing on Gabriel's heart] "I love you, I love you, I love you more than Jesus!"

The Ellen Barkin movie Switch.

In Constantine, Peter Stormare plays the Devil as a dapper middle-aged gent in a pristine white suit...save for his bare feet and pant cuffs, which are covered in steaming tar. His behavior is more in line with your average child molester than a suave prince of darkness or a roaring demon. In a rather fine example of outbargaining the devil for a favor, Constantine cuts his wrists and calls the Devil. After some idle chitchat, with the Devil helping John light up a cigarette, Constantine points the Devil to the fact his son and an angel are planning on releasing Satan's son onto earth. This irks the Devil as he feels Earth will be his in time and sends his son back to hell and, with God's blessing, turns the angel to human. The Devil returns to Constantine and offers him some more time as thanks. Instead of that, Constantine asks him to release the soul of the heroine's sister, who was damned for her suicide. The Devil does so easily. As the Devil is about to take him away, Constantine starts getting pulled up into heaven, and the Devil realizes that his "suicide" was really a self-sacrifice as he took no personal gain from the reward given. However, thinking quickly, he decides to use his powers to heal both Constantine's wrists and his cancer, using the logic that he's giving Constantine more time to damn himself again. Whether this works or not is left to the viewer.

The most important part was forgotten: He got flipped off. That made up for the movie as a whole.

Hell's Highway features a female Satan who poses as a hitchhiker and kills those who give her a ride, such as a memorable scene where she cuts the infamous Ron Jeremy's penis off, which causes him to crash into a gas station after he takes several seconds to even notice it occurred.

Cloud Atlas: In the post-apocalyptic portion of the movie, "Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After," the devil, played by Hugo Weaving, is portrayed as a character called "Ol' Georgie" and is depicted with green pockmarked skin and wearing a stovepipe hat. Ol' Georgie appears several times throughout the story to taunt and tempt the story's protagonist Zachry (played by Tom Hanks).

The eponymous villain of Warlock considers Satan his father, and conjures him in a human vessel to receive further orders.

He appears in towering form over the apocalyptic Los Angeles landscape at the climax of This Is the End.

Literature

Features prominently in the modern Bible. The Hebrew Bible is the Trope Namer, but the character as he is today has largely evolved from a number of different religious entities that served to test the faith of humans, the term used for these entities being something to the effect of (ha-)satan, meaning "adversary".

The usage in Ancient Hebrew also comes into legal procedures, where the closest modern equivalent is "Prosecutor". The supernatural versions often do a similar job in the courts of God.

Paradise Lost features perhaps the most famous fictional depiction of Satan in Western literature. John Milton's deep characterization has lead to hundreds of years of critical analysis.

There are at least two major literary versions of the Faust legend: Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and Goethe's Faust. There are also several major operas based on one or the other of these, all with varying views as to whether Faust can be saved. Wikipedia has a list. Incidentally, Mephistopheles was originally just a demon serving under Lucifer/Satan; he became Satan in Goethe's version.

The classic story The Devil and Daniel Webster has been dramatized for television and film countless times. Satan is often Affably Evil in these depictions, and takes the (actually rather hard to argue with) position that he's not doing anything evil by trying to claim the New Hampshire farmer's soul, since he held up his end of the deal and all he's asking is that the other man do the same.

Subverted in the Arthur C. Clarke novel Childhood's End, where the devil-like aliens really are the Good Guys, there to help the human race to reach the next stage of evolution, the twist is that the process is so traumatic that it resonates back through time, causing them to become a diabolical archetype in the human collective unconscious.

In Magic, Inc., the heroes reach Hell and its king, whom custom demands that he let them review The Legions of Hell to find their enemy.

Played with in the Russian classic The Master and Margarita.Woland causes mass mayhem in 1930's Moscow including but not limited to driving hack writers insane, beheading someone (he got better) and sending thousands of Muscovites into the streets naked. Yet despite his deviousness, the novel shows a Soviet Russia so screwed up that Woland and his entourage come across as Magnificent Bastards at worst. By the end of the novel, Woland's even in league with Jesus to grant a young couple peace (essentially send them to Dante's first level of heaven).

Woland isn't seen perpetrating evil at all. He and his ilk are shown handing punishments right and left to those who deserve them, which just happen to be everyone. While Woland doesn't agree with Yeshua on some key philosophical points, he's actually shown as a force of good (with a twisted sense of humor).

The Dark One (whose real name is Shai'tan) in Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, who is seen as somewhat less powerful than The Creator, but also vastly, infinitely more powerful than any being in the material world. This series also gets bonuses in that many of The Dark One's top ranked minions have names based synonyms for Devil (Asmodean, Bel'al, Ba'alzamon, et al), and several pseudonyms for The Dark One are obviously based on real world names meaning the same thing.

The Devil's Storybook (and sequel) has ten short stories about the Devil trying to do things. He wins roughly half the time; a few stories push him to the background to dwell on the affairs of Hell or such. Examples:

The Devil encounters a perfect girl, one who never pouts or has a temper or does anything wrong at all. He throws everything he's got at her, trying to make her imperfect, but it never works. Until finally he hits on a plan that has her losing her temper a dozen times a day: He gives her a perfect husband and a perfect home, then sends her an average child.

A demon brings a rose to Hell, and plants it; when it blossoms, its aroma fills Hell, disgusting the Devil, who investigates. He finds the rose and orders it destroyed, but the demon at least gets some comfort when he finds a piece of broken crockery with a picture of a rose (no scent!).

A man dies and gets cremated, but his housekeeper ends up spilling his ashes and sweeping them up together with the ashes of a roast pig. The pig ends up in Hell, following the man around and nuzzling him. Once the man determines the problem, he gets the Devil to bring him the ashes, and painstakingly separates the ashes flake by flake. Over time, the pig grows distant. When the man has almost completed his task, the housekeeper dies and ends up in Hell...

An incarnation of the devil appears to Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov (in the form of an impoverished country gentleman) and carries on a long conversation with him about the cruelties of the world. Because the narrator warns us that Ivan is suffering from Brain Fever, we're left uncertain as to whether the conversation is real or a demented hallucination. Ivan tries to prove that he's a hallucination several times, only to have the devil trump him by proving that he could very well be real.

In the Betsy The Vampire Queen books, Betsy's half-sister is Satan's daughter. In this case, Satan is her mother. "She's" only made one non-flashback appearance, in which she scolds her daughter for "rebelling" (In this case, consciously being the biggest Pollyanna possible).

In the Inferno section of the The Divine Comedy, Satan is a gigantic, monstrous idiot at the lowest point of hell. He's trapped waist-deep in ice, which is kept forever frozen by the wind of his flapping wings as he tries to escape. This factors into the common Christian theme of sinners placing themselves in hell, rather than God or Satan sending them there. Arch-sinners Cassius, Brutus and Judas are forever getting chewed up in Satan's mouth.

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's Inferno and Escape From Hell books, based on Dante's work have a somewhat more articulate Satan who talks to the protagonists when they are climbing down him to escape suggesting sardonically that God "could take lessons in morality from Vlad the Impaler" and that "He could have made a better universe by throwing dice".

In For Love of Evil, the sixth book of Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series, a priest named Parry becomes Satan. However, he's something of a Punch Clock Villain, choosing to manage Evil rather than embody it. This is just fine with the other Incarnations, and we eventually find out why.

Hungarian playwright Imre Madách's The Tragedy of Man features Lucifer as a guide of Adam in his dream through ages from the Ancient Egypt to Distant Future. He appears as a benevolent character, but his ultimate goal was to corrupt humanity and drive Adam to suicide because of a wager with God (a very unique case of Deal with the Devil indeed). He fails.

Satan is (naturally enough) the central character of Jeremy Leven's novel Satan: His Psychotherapy and Cure by the Unfortunate Dr. Kassler, JSPS* (*Just Some Poor Schmuck), in which he undergoes seven sessions of therapy that leave him increasingly better off, but which don't quite work out so well for the poor Dr. K.

In a similar vein, in Clark Ashton Smith's short story Schizoid Creator, a psychiatrist tries to cure Satan, under the belief that Satan and God are just two sides of a split personality. This theory turns out to be true.

In Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos, the hero is not certain whether he's actually met Satan or merely one of his higher-ups (or lower-downs as the case may be). He's certainly met an extremely powerful devil.

Good Omens has Satan, but he never actually appears, leaving the work to various underlings, including Beelzebub.

Lucifer stars as a major character in Lilith Saintcrow's Dante Valentine series. He is an androgyne, which means he can reproduce.

In C. S. Lewis's Perelandra, Satan appears as the main villain, possessing the body of the previous book's villain. Lewis goes out of his way to deconstruct the popular image of the Devil as a Magnificent Bastard—while he is truly brilliant and can be incredibly charming when he wants to, he seems to derive his deepest pleasures from acting like an annoying five-year-old or torturing small animals to the brink of death without actually showing the mercy of killing them. In short, he's The Dark Knight's Joker, only without the entertaining sense of humor.

Mark Twain's book Letters From The Earth is told from Satan's point of view. Despite being loyal to God, he gets banished to Earth for a day in angel time for speaking unwisely. However, because of Time Dissonance this means he is stuck there for what seems to us a long time during which he sends back letters on humanity, their nature, and Christianity. In the book he comes off as not at all evil though possessing a refined sense of irony and a slight bafflement at humanity.

The Sorrows of Satan (1895) by Marie Corelli centers on the premise that Satan actually wants people to resist his temptations, because every human being who rejects him moves him that much closer to being allowed back into Heaven.

I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan has Lucifer being granted a second chance for redemption by living life as a mortal. The book is told from his perspective with all the dark humour, sex and charm you'd expect from the devil himself. Deals with his side of the story.

Anne Rice toys with the concept of Satan a few times in her Vampire Chronicles books. In "The Tale of the Body Thief" one character imagines Satan not as a single entity but instead as a specific duty assigned to various entities throughout history, the job presumably entailing tempting and testing humankind ala Job. In "Memnoch the Devil", vampire anti-hero Lestat actually meets the title character (apparently "Memnoch" is his original name and he dislikes being called "Satan" or anything else) and learns that while he is indeed a rebellious angel thrown from heaven, he's not at all evil (although he's not really exactly good either) and is involved in some sort of cosmic wager with God on whether or not wicked souls can be rehabilitated.

Satan makes an appearance at the end of The Monk to claim Ambrosio's soul personally.

In The Descent, after a vast underground realm populated by demon-like hominids has been discovered, a group of scholars infer by a priori reasoning (ie. guessing) that if this has been the inspiration for hell and demons, the figure of Satan in mythology must also be based on a real person who has been reincarnating over the ages. They're right, and he's one among their own number.

In The Dresden Files he doesn't physically appear but does exist. He seeks to unleash the Apocalypse onto the world but cannot physically get involved with the mortal plane without drawing Heaven's attention and will act to counter his influence with equal force. So he cursed the thirty pieces of silver paid to Judas to allow thirty of his followers a chance into the mortal world. These Fallen can inhabit a mortal and give them access to dark but awesome magic and power (See Demonic Possession for more about them). He gave his men access to Super-hellfire in order to bind a Physical God. And he is on the short list of Fallen who lied to Harry Dresden, who spoke a dark untruth for the purpose of destroying Harry and succeeded in making Harry kill himself.

In Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain, Lucyfar claims to be the Archangel Lucifer, Princess of Lies. Initially, this seems like an obvious lie, especially since her only power appears to be summoning floating black knives—which is cool and all, but not exactly on Lucifer's level. When she gets annoyed, however, she conjures an elegant black dress, skeletal wings, and a crown of black fire, all while completely no-selling some pretty hard-core magic. Lends a bit of weight to her claim.

Dora Wilk Series similarily splits the position between two fallen. Lucifer has the name, the psychic and magical might and the rulership over Hell, while Sammael (another name of Satan) is in charge of department of punishments and is extremely hostile towards Dora while Luc is a Cool Old Guy to his grandson's girlfriend.

Live-Action TV

In the memorable "Halloween" episode of Quantum Leap, the Devil impersonated Al in an attempt to trap and punish Sam for the "fixes" and improvements he'd made in the timeline (unless it was All Just a Dream). Later, it is implied that Satan is (perhaps indirectly) in charge of the organization responsible for the "Evil Leapers" Sam encounters.

The First Evil in Buffy the Vampire Slayer is notably not Satan. The First's right hand man Caleb refers to Satan as a "little man". Satan, or, at least, someone resembling him, later appears on Angel—"Izzerial the Devil", a tennis partner of Angel and a member of the season's Big Bad group "The Circle of the Black Thorn", although he is killed by a Eldritch Abomination in human form.

The comics following After the Fall feature another devil who is constantly being mistaken for a demon. He's also blue, but has a human form.

The Angel episode "The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco" mentions an incident where "the devil built a robot."note El Diablo Robótico, which is also the name of a band.

A Year At The Top featured a pair of musicians who made a deal with Satan's son for a single year of rock'n'roll success. They appear to have gotten it, but the series didn't...

Stargate SG-1 eventually met Sokar, allegedly the first Goa'uld to take a humanoid host, master of a hell-like prison planet, who is proposed to be the indirect inspiration for the Christian notion of Satan. Interestingly, actual Egyptian mythology does have a number of gods similar to Satan—the evil Set is one, as is the monstrous Apep, known better to Stargate fans as Apophis, the Big Bad of the first five seasons. Notably, after Sokar's death his domain is taken over by Apophis.

The Daemons (of the planet Daemos) are identified in an episode of Doctor Who as a race of advanced aliens who formed the basis of human demonic mythology. The whole thing is a slightly shameless rip-off of the earlier serial and movie Quatermass And The Pit (Five Million Years to Earth in the US).

Sutekh in "Pyramids of Mars" is explicitly noted by the Fourth Doctor to be the real Satan.

"The Satan Pit" would reveal the "real" Satan, The Beast, a big scary monster bound since before the dawn of time by an ancient race and the origin of every mythology's Devil. Of course, the Doctor's skeptical, since he's met so many "real" versions of mythological beings. The Daemons are mentioned in passing as a Continuity Nod.

The Torchwood first season finale goes on to feature Abaddon, the son of the aforementioned Beast.

In the miniseries Fallen, Lucifer, the last fallen angel still on Earth, asks our hero to redeem him and send him back to Heaven. Notably, he was played by Bryan Cranston, best known as the goofy dad from Malcolm in the Middle. Weird.

Similar to the Quantum Leap example, Seven Days had the Devil show up disguised as a chrononaut from further in the future, tricking the team into assassinating a diplomat and provoking an international crisis that would result in nuclear war. His identity is revealed when Parker stops him, provoking a rant at how Parker and the team keep screwing up the plans he makes for human misery.

Ray Wise is the charming, smooth-talking Devil on Reaper. He's also quite funny.

In "The Howling Man", a man must decide whether to release the title character. Once he does, he finds out who the captive really is...

"Printer's Devil". Our favorite demon tries to get a newspaper owner to sell his soul by giving him a linotype machine that can make things come true by printing them. Here he's played with utter relish by Burgess Meredith.

In American Gothic, Sheriff Lucas Buck apparently is or is possessed by the Devil.

In an episode of Northern Exposure, Satan comes to Cicely as a short, wimpy little man played by Charles Martin Smith (Toad from American Graffiti). With the world already in shambles due to war and ethnic cleansing, Satan now amuses himself by tempting good people into making very small concessions of morality. He offers Shelley a more glamorous life if she will only burn her husband's favorite sweater, but she refuses.

He's the Big Bad of Supernatural and was ultimately responsible along with Azazel and Lilith for the events up to Season 5. Surprise.

Lucifer refused to bow down to humans on God's command, believing himself to be superior to the "murderous hairless apes". According to Gabriel, Lucifer was the family favorite and became envious when God "brought home the new baby [humans]". To prove the unworthiness of the human race, he tortured and twisted a human's soul, creating Lilith, the first demon. For this, he was cast into Hell and imprisoned in a Cage until an epic Xanatos Gambit was conducted to free him. His endgame in Season 5 is to eradicate humans and demons from the world and return it to the original masterpiece it used to be. He is also affable and acts in a very calm, collected, and calculating manner. While he genuinely wants you believe that Satan Is Good, he is every bit the monster you'd expect.

Curiously, only Famine and Pestilence refer to him as "Satan". He is usually called either "Lucifer" or "the Devil".

In Xena: Warrior Princess, Xena had killed the previous ruler of hell and is supposed to be the successor. Lucifer comes down from heaven and attempts to force her to accept her new role. However, Xena manipulates him into committing the seven deadly sins, causing him to mutate into a devil-figure, and then kicks him into hell.

Married... with Children: Al Bundy sold his soul to Lou(cifer) for NFL glory. When it came time to collect, Al found he liked Hell, so Lou brought down the rest of the Bundys, and the Darcys.

The Collector: The Devil is a central character; He is omniscient, his relationship with God(who is not heard from) is adversarial but otherwise unclear, and he claims that he only seeks to do good. Each episode has him played by a new actor, actress, or in one memorable case puppet, and his main activity as seen through the series is making standardized deals with mortals.

In the X-Files episode "Signs and Wonders", Reverend MacKay, the killer, is implied to be Satan.

Perhaps the best candidate (though there's no reason they can't all be him) is Aaron Starkey in "All Souls". He's after the souls of Nepholim (children of Seraphim and human women) which a Priest claims the Devil actually would be after, is capable of setting people on fire with a glance, his shadow has horns, he can't enter churches, and speaks with Voice of the Legion when angered. It's heavily implied an actual Seraphim finally defeats him.

On the season 5 premiere of Misfits, Finn gets turned into Satan through someone's power and turns several of the other Misfits into agents of Satan as well.

Music

Voltaire has a few that include Lou in one way or another. There's "Almost Human" which makes the devil into The Woobie, "Blue Eyed Matador" where a soul in the afterlife mistakes the bull he's fighting for the devil and the girl in the stands for an angel (guess how that works out), and "Goodnight Demon Slayer", in which a father is telling his son not to worry about monsters (the devil among them) because he's tougher than any of them.

It is not made very clear whether the titular pick of destiny from Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny is the chipped-off tooth of a demon or Satan himself. He claims in his song near the end of the film to be the devil, but different sources in the film say he was just a demon.

In one of his songs, singing comedian Stephen Lynch portrays Satan as completely and flamboyantly gay, complete with stereotypical high-pitched, lisping voice, and makes remarks that imply that he himself is Satan's son, who wastes all his time singing songs about "special kids named Fred" instead of spreading evil.

Frank Zappa's "Titties & Beer" from Zappa In New York and Läther features the devil as a little guy with a red suit and widow's peak, quite capable of swallowing a 'big titty girly' whole (and then regurgitating her unharmed afterwards).

"The Devil Went Down to Georgia" from the Charlie Daniels Band shows the typical Deal with the Devil as a contest: I bet a fiddle of gold/Against your soul/'Cause I think I'm better than you!

Two versions of the song were heard on radio. The 45 rpm single for AM radio with the line "'Cause I told you once you son of a gun, I'm the best there's ever been," and the album edition for FM radio with the line as "I done told you once you son of a bitch, I'm the best there's ever been."

There was a sequel, sung by several different country singers, titled, appropriately, "The Devil Comes Back to Georgia".

Gets a few cameos in Don McLean's "American Pie" from American Pie. 'I heard Satan laughing with delight/ The day the music died.'

The song also implies that Mick Jagger is Satan, or at least the generation of rock he embodies is Satanic.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick,

Jack Flash sat on a candle stick,

Because fire is the devil's only friend.

The "Damien" songs by DMX. Each song is a one-man duet between X and the titular character (X raises his pitch for Damien's parts), where Old Scratch is represented as a friend constantly trying to coax X to the darkside. Marilyn Manson sings the hook in one of the songs.

Symphony X created an album based off of John Milton's Paradise Lost and was released in 2007. The vocalist spends a good amount of time as Satan.

Don Henley's In the Garden of Allah has the devil. "It's just like home—so damn hot I can't stand it..."

Black/Death Metal band Behemoth usually actually references various mythological demons, usually from Sumerian, Egyptian, or Roman mythology, but the song "Christgrinding Avenue" features the line "I'm on my way. Destination, Hell. By the power of will, I shall complete the Devil's work."

Their most recent album has a song that is simply titled "Lucifer," the lyrics of which are an old Polish poem sung from his perspective.

Celtic Frost, particularly the song "Synagoga Satanae," which, as you may have guessed, is Latin for "The Church of Satan."

A OFWGKTA song includes the lyrics, "Somebody tell Satan that I want my fucking swagger back."

The Italian heavy metal band Power Symphony has an album titled Lightbringer, featuring the song "Lucifer," in which Satan recalls his beautiful brilliance as Lucifer as well as his fall into darkness.

Kamelot's albums Epica and The Black Halo feature demonic temptation(by "Mephisto"), with Descent of the Archangel being the most prominent example.

Newspaper Comics

Dilbert has a toned-down version of Satan, called the Prince of Insufficient Light. He carries a giant pitchspoon. When he curses you, he says "I darn you to heck!"

Radio

In the BBC series Old Harry's Game, the Devil is portrayed as a weary, existential figure, tricked into rebelling against God and thereafter condemned to supervise Hell. This is shown to be an extremely arduous task, because almost all human beings have committed a sin of some kind. On one occasion, God accepts that Satan's punishment was out of proportion to his crime, but refuses to pardon him, as the existence of Satan is necessary for reasons that God will not reveal. In the fifth series, the Devil subverts his usual role by trying to convince Humanity to act in a moral manner, in order to ease the congestion in Hell.

Tabletop Games

In Ars Magica, the influence of (the Christian) God and Satan is pervasive in Mythic Europe. The Big Guy himself is the source of Hell's power, the False Empyrean, and personally oversaw the creation of the first Dark Churches despite being bound in the deepest corner of the Pit.

The French game In Nomine Satanis / Magna Veritas has you playing either demons (INS) or angels (MV). It is a subversion of Christianity in that devils are not all bad, and angels...well, there is an Archangel of the Inquisition, and you would not want to meet the Archangel of the Sword, either. Kinda short on the tolerance and all-inclusive love, these guys are. Anyway, Satan is either your Big Bad, or the boss of your boss. A campaign revolves around him getting depressed and wanting to quit his job.

The American adaptation by Steve Jackson Games, In Nomine, maintains much the same feel, but its version of Satan is as remote and unknowable as God. In his very few appearances, it's made clear that he's not funny, friendly, charming, suave, honorable, or quirky. His defining traits are that he's very powerful, very smart, and hates you, along with everyone else in Creation.

In KULT, his name is Astaroth (but he has 666 avatars walking around using different names).

In first and second edition Nobilis, Lucifer is the Imperator of Pride and Persuasion. Once, he was the greatest leader among the angels, but following the creation of humanity, he formed a particular loathing for humans (no-one knows why, save maybe Lucifer himself) and rebelled against Heaven, rejecting the angelic belief in Beauty as the highest principle and championing Corruption in its place. He and the angels who followed him were cast into Hell, a place of corruption incarnate—yet despite that, he apparently remains true to his beliefs, untouched by Hell's corruption.

This was changed for third edition: the fallen angels now fell because they felt everything deserved love, even the monstrous and wicked, as opposed to the angels, whose belief in justice meant they felt the wicked had no place in things. Lucifer is mentioned in passing, still first of the fallen and Imperator of Pride and Persuasion, but what he's like is unknown.

The Adversary in Shadowrun is an Idol/Mentor Spirit for Shamans to follow. Despite its dark connotations (the Adversary is outright said to equal Satan in the Judeo-Christian tradition) the Adversary isn't toxic and is about as "evil" as any of the other mentor spirits—it is a legitimate mentor for Shadowrunning anarchists. Following The Adversary means you're physically incapable of Just Following Orders, and don't think he'll let you off easily if you spurn the shadows in order to work for The Man.

Theatre

One of the main characters in Damn Yankees is Mr. Applegate, the Devil, who strikes a bargain with baseball fan Joe Hardy to let him play for his team and win the pennant.

In the series Shin Megami Tensei, Lucifer is always around the corner, pulling strings in his quest to defeat YHVH. He often appears as a blonde human, named (groan) Louis Cypher (or in one entry, Louisa Ferre.). But nobody ever seems to get it anyway, so to Hell with it...his posse in Shin Megami Tensei I includes Beelzebub, Asura, Arioch, the gender-confused Astaroth, and Norse baddie Surt.

Satan, on the other hand, is God's servant (of the hasatan flavor in the original Hebrew tradition), as showcased in Shin Megami Tensei II; needless to say, Lucifer and Satan do not get along. The kicker: God manages to be such a massive jerk in Shin Megami Tensei II that Satan gets fed up and joins the player should he choose the Law path.

In the Persona series, you can summon Satan. And Lucifer. And Lucifer's prettier version (usually called Helel). Put two of the three (it changes depending on the version) into the main character's lineup in 3 and you can use Armageddon, which kills...anything and everything, really. In 4, Satan is "merely" a persona of the Judgment Arcana, whilst Helelnote Lucifer during his time as a loyal servant of God and Lucifernote the Fallen Angel King of Hell are the ultimate personas associated with the Star and Judgment Arcanas, respectively.

Mundus from Devil May Cry, who was originally intended to be named Satan. He comes in white and looks somewhat like an angel (that is, until Dante messes him up but good, revealing the Eldritch Abomination within). He's not quite omnipotent, though, but it does seem thus far that he cannot be permanently killed, even with the power of Sparda, so Dante eventually has to seal him away like his father did long ago.

In the Diablo video game series, the protagonists must fight the three Prime Evils: Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal. All are alternate names for Satan.

In Diablo III Diablo "becomes" Satan with the Black Soulstone, which combines the Soul of the Seven Evils into Tathamet, the personification of all evil in the Diablo universe.

In God of War, Hades definitely has a certain, er, hell-ish thing going on. The god and the location.

In Final Fantasy II, the final boss goes to Hell and becomes Satan by killing him. Beezlebub, however, is a miniboss that can be found in front of a certain treasure chest, and as a bonus boss in the Bonus Level, in which you play as the characters that died during the main storyline.

You work for Satan in the first Deception, plotting to resurrect him. At least, at first; whether you continue working for him through the story is up to you. In the fifth game, Deception IV: Blood Ties, you play as his daughter with the same goal of bringing him back.

Obligatorily the Big Bad of Dante's Inferno. From some of his rants, it seems that he was locked up because he refused to bow down to humans, who were created in God's image, rather than because he tried to overthrow God (though that does seem to be his goal by the time the events of the game roll around).

This is actually the reason for the fall of Iblis, Islam's version of the Devil.

Red Dead Redemption features a series of Stranger missions with an obviously wealthy and intelligent man who sends John on bizarre missions that only an omnipotent being could know of, always making the options quite clear to John, such as whether to rob or help a nun, or to stop or encourage a man to cheat on his wife. He also makes remarks that he is an "accountant" and that he hopes his son grows up to be "like John." It gets even more bizarre, after John shoots him in the back of the head three times and he continues to walk away, unharmed. Later on, he can be seen both at the execution of John Marston and then once more at his funeral. And the spot of his last encounter? The future location of John's grave. Though by his accord, it's "Quite a nice place."

Though there is a bit of a debate amongst players as to whether he is The Devil, The Grim Reaper, or God. All three view points have compelling evidence, and it was probably Rockstar's intention to make it ambiguous enough that it could be whichever one you think it is.

Death Smiles decided that plain old Satan was too boring, so its final boss and head of the demonic invasion triggered by Jitterbug is Demonic Imperator Tyrannosatan

And the sequel has as its final boss a bizarre mash-up of demon and Santa Claus called..."Satan Claws".

Tekken has the Devil Gene, which allows most of the Mishima family (Besides Heihachi) to turn into a Devil, and the Devil Forms of Kazuya, Jin, and Jinpachi are usually considered the strongest combatants in the game as far as story goes.

While Arceus is the Pokémon equivalent of God, Primal Dialga , the (fake)Big Bad of the second Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game (who looks like an evil Dialga with a black body and red stripes instead of a blue body and green stripes) may actually be the series' equivalent of the Devil. Giratina and Darkrai are popular candidates for the title as well, though they are both not outright evil.Occasionally played straight with the latter however.

Giratina definitely fits the role of Satan on a cosmic level: it's a literal god/Eldritch Abomination that was banished for its aggressive tendencies(in particular, its obsession with balance) by what is implied to be the aformentioned Arceus. While not evil(it prevents Cyrus from achieving An Arceus Am I), it's a fearsome opponent that has the potential of threatning the world. One could say it's more Hades, keeper of the Underworld, than Satan.

As far as imagery goes, the closest this franchise has is Ghetsis Harmonia, the human Big Bad of the fifthgeneration.His hair is shaped like horns going out to the side, his eyes are red, and his second outfit is a creepy looking Black Cloak. He is also fixated on "capturing hearts, minds, and souls of others", and his battle theme is almost a Dark Reprise of Arceus'. The opening to the "Episode N" arc of the anime even shows him set to a red, flaming background throwing his cape back in a very Devil-esque fashion. This all seems to suggest that any world he'd rule would be Hell on Earth.

There is a theme among the Ghosts N Goblins villains, as they're all named after some variant of Satan. The actual Satan is The Dragon to Astaroth, the most common recurring villain. Other villains include Beelzebub, Lucifer, Samael, and Hades.

Rodin himself also counts all of the character art for Rodin in the unlockable extras never uses that name, giving his name as "Mephisto", the name of a German folklore demon most prominently mentioned in the Faust legend and occasionally has been used as another name for the Devil himself. Appropriately, Rodin's role is broadly similar to the traditional devil: a fallen angel who is thwarted and punished from trying to conquer Heaven (and is feared by it) who rules his own "sub-basement" location after his punishment, and jokes about the "deals" he provides Bayonetta.

Satan is the bad guy of the first Puyo Puyo game, and a regular character in the series. Tends to be the Final Boss (or at least one of them), as well as a cheater. However, this seems to be Played for Laughs; Satan liked Hawaiian T-shirts, wanted to marry Arle instead of killing her, and his plans were absolutely harmless (without the Fridge Horror). Even in Sega's run, he never actually did anything evil, and he even became a technical big brother to another horned character.

His presence actually dates back to the earlier RPG series, Madou Monogatari, where he's the final boss of the second game. He also has a bit part in SFC remake of the original, where he's noticeably charmed by the 5-year-old Arle.

Oddly enough, in Sega's run, they did add a Big Red Devil that was a spirit, sealed in a book for a long enough time for the text about it to fade. Though, this spirit was also harmless, as the most it did when it was the villain was try and bring its former body back for something.

The ninja from The Ninja Kids deal with a bunch of satanists, terrorists and assorted evildoers who want to "resurrect" Satan. They succeed, and you have to fight him as the final boss.

The old arcade game Psychic 5 features statues of a demon sit upon a throne (referred to as Satan in the manual) that you have to destroy in order to finish the levels.

In Graffiti Kingdom, the devil is a horned, purple guy-looking-thing named Medium. When freed from his imprisonment, he takes over Canvas Kingdom and plans to rule the world. His son Tablet overthrows him and becomes the new devil, so "devil" is probably just a title for "ruler of demons" rather than an actual entity.

Most Twisted Metal continuities that go into the backstory of Manipulative BastardBig Bad game master Calypso have it that he either stole his wish granting power from a demon or got it in a Deal with the Devil. But the latest game's story goes further than that. It has the Preacher convinced that Calypso is the devil himself, and the details on the differences between him and the other versions of Calypso make this allegation hard to argue against.

Parody: In Dinosaur Comics, Satan is seemingly a videogame-obsessed nerd. He's never seen directly, instead being represented by red text coming from below the panel border.

Also, T-Rex is the only person who can hear Satan (or God, for that matter), leading the other characters to occasionally speculate that T-Rex is making up those voices he hears.

Homestuck has a character named, well, Doc Scratch, who told the heroes that they could escape their current situation and the unstoppable villain hunting them if in exchange they would allow his master to enter the fray. He succeeds as he is omniscient, multi-dimensional, and an excellent host.

In College Roomies From Hell, demons first appeared as throwaway characters who were summoned by the inept Satanists Waldo and Steve, but refused to do their bidding. Later, as the strip became more serious, they actually manage to summon Satan (as opposed to the previous nameless minor demons), and, after trying to take Dave's soul, he began showing a clear personal interest in the main characters, quickly proving to have been the Big Bad of the series all along.

The Devil appears as a main character in Sinfest. He operates a deal booth styled like Lucy's booth in Peanuts, and is antagonized by The Faceless God, who mocks him with a silly handpuppet. Aside from various taunts against God and attempts to tempt people or buy their souls, he is generally presented as a neutral or even sympathetic character compared to the petty and whimsical God.

Satan appears in Casey and Andy not only as a woman, but as the girlfriend of one of the title characters.

Satan is a minor character in the Magic: The Gathering webcomic UG Madness, usually working with Magic R&D director Mark Rosewater (portrayed as a comical imp). His first appearance was in this strip.

The folkloric devil is often discussed in West Of Bathurst, a slice of life comic, as seen here. The longer the comic goes on, the more likely it seems that one character actually is the devil.

Satan has made a handful of appearances in Sluggy Freelance, most notably being summoned onto Riff's computer in the strip's first Story Arc, and for being the father of The Evil.

In Manga Punk Sai'sThe Story From Hell has Satan and Lucifer as two separate characters: loyal angel Satan is in charge of Hell, and his rather thankless duties include hunting down fallen angel Lucifer whenever he manages to run off to Earth. (On closer inspection, Sai seems to have taken down the main storyline, but there's still plenty of character art and Omake arcs there.)

It can still be found starting here, though it's pretty old now and nothing like what she plans it to be in the future.

Lucifer's niece Cassiel (who, while not a fallen angel, is still distinctly petty and vindictive) is the resident Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain in Misfile. Lucifer himself is confirmed to exist within the comic's universe, but hasn't put in a personal appearance...yet.

Given the primary focus of Jack, it's not surprising that Satan makes occasional appearances, in a form similar to David Hopkins' furry persona (a blue skunk), only with all-black eyes.

Blip features variations on both the Jewish and the Christian versions of Satan, as separate characters. Lucifer is the angel who rebelled against God and currently rules Hell—he's also a bishonen and a surprisingly nice guy (who still wants to destroy the world). "The Adversary" fills the role of God's prosecuting attorney and Loyal Opposition; he's much less nice. In spite of being on opposite sides of a war, the two of them get along rather well.

Being a webcomic about a student getting demonic powers, Underling features a rather dickish Satan.

Satan and Hmac from Epic Storytime were good friends in college. Lucifer had apparently been a real party animal and also loved to smoke tons of Marijuana. They became best friends near graduation and when they made it out of college, the two stayed drinking buddies and had went to the bar every Friday night since then. Hmac later returned to the underworld, seeking him for answers of who was attacking the U.S. and why.

In Mr Deity, Lucifer is "Lucy", an ex-girlfriend of the titular Mr. Deity, who got stuck with the Hell gig after she did Mr. Deity a favour in stirring up things in the Garden of Eden. She's particularly annoyed by the constant "passive-aggressive" references to her being a "snake" in the "script", and would much prefer her avatar on Earth to be a bunny. She's not impressed by Mr. Deity's alternative suggestion of a goat.

Appears quite a bit in the first, Hell-centric book of The Salvation War. He's a colossal Jerk Ass, and a bit of an idiot. Hardly surprising that the human war effort wants to kill him with extreme prejudice.

Dr. Clef of The SCP Foundation may or may not be Lucifer. A storyline involving both Dr. Clef and SCP-239 strongly implies it. His response when interviewed about it is to first claim he is, then claim he was lying, then point out there's no way to be sure whether he was lying about being Lucifer, or lying about lying about it. Oh, and if this is the case, SCP-239 may or may not also be the physical incarnation of God or the Second Coming of Christ.

The short film "Raking Leaves" by comedy troupe Stella and Bradley Cooper involves a rather unexpected appearance.

The Whateley Universe has something that claims to be Satan. Merry has even been spiritually sent to 'Hell' and tortured by him. He claims God exists, and the two of them are trying to keep eldritch abominations from bursting into their universe.

Satan has also made a debut in the Son of the Mask review, where it's revealed that he's married to Kim Kardashian and has a daughter with her, named Evillina (who is a My Little Pony fangirl who apparently chats with CR and is far less evil than her father would like). He makes another appearance in the Cat in the Hat review, where he's shown pitching the moviePlanesto Pixar, and is a Papa Wolf when the movie's creator tries to subject the Critic and Evillina to a movie-marathon of the recently-made Dr. Seuss adaptations. As it turns out, the creator only had financial success because he sold his soul to the Devil.

In Rosto AD's Mind My Gap, we have Virgil S. Horn. As the series narrator and villain, Rosto and he don't exactly say he's the devil, but when Virgil covers the second "a" in his middle name...besides being a villain, he owns a TV show and is a (con)cept artist.

Although he has yet to physically appear in Shadowhunter Peril, there have been several references to his existence in the Infernal Worlds. The first Big Bad's last name is "Morgenstern" (which means "Morning Star", one of Lucifer's many names), and his One-Winged Angel form appears to be a subtle Shout-Out to the version of Lucifer depicted as having six wings. By far the biggest references would be Puriel flying into an Unstoppable Rage at the mention of Lucifer—he also states once or twice that he has fought in the war in Heaven, which could mean he and Lucifer actually did meet. So far, though, the closest thing SP has to a Satan-like figure is Asmodeous, who is the first son of Lilith, and the only demon to have a fallen angel (Samael) for a father—in fact, the only demon to have a father at all. He's currently king of the Infernal Worlds, so where that leaves Lucifer in the hierarchy is unknown.

Seen here burying dinosaur bones to confuse the minds of men in this ironic Teach the Controversy t-shirt.

The Devil is the explicit identity of the villain in the pilot episode of Cow and Chicken. This gets Bowdlerised for the series proper, and he's only called "The Red Guy" from there on out, even though it's glaringly obvious he's the Devil; they might have a point, though, because as the series goes on, he was turned from Evil to an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain.

"The Red Guy" is also a regular character on I Am Weasel. In the series, he is also referred as "I.B. Red Guy", an allusion to Weasel's and Baboon's names.

One of The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episodes had Ned Flanders as Satan, selling Homer a donut in exchange for his soul.

On The Critic, Satan is responsible for many of Hollywood's problems (such as unnecessary sequels and Marisa Tomei winning an Oscar). The cast of Wings once asked him for another season on the air ("There are limits to even MY powers!"). He also appears in the episode "Siskel & Ebert & Jay & Alice" with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert when Gene is interviewing possible replacements:

Satan: (transformed as a reviewer): Tim Allen gives that same likeable performance we always love, once again proving Disney Pictures have the magic touch that may not win awards, but keeps America smiling. How was that?

Gene Siskel: You're Satan, aren't you?

Satan:(transforms back into himself) You win another round, Siskel, but we shall meet again! (growls angrily and disappears through the floor.)

Satan appears in ReBoot as a Playable Character for the User in a Mortal Kombat-ish game. He is also the first User character to be truly menacing, and he wins. When Satan gets spawned in Mainframe during System Crash Matrix gets to have revenge against him. The character's official name is Zaytan, but that's just some Executive Meddling since his name is clearly pronounced as Satan in the show.

Satan made an appearance on an episode of Darkwing Duck, going by the name of Beelzebub. The episode predictably went missing.

He appears briefly in the Ren and Stimpy episode "Sven Hoek" after Ren ends up killing everyone when he takes a leak on the Electric Fence board game. Which was the number #1 thing you must not do when playing the game. Satan's cheerful admonishment as they arrive in Hell: "So, you whizzed on the electric fence, didn't ya?"

According to some of the sketches done for "Sven Hoek", Satan was apparently supposed to be George Liquor in a devil costume. In the final cartoon, he still looks more than a little like George and is even voiced by Michael Pataki.

In the Animaniacs episode Hot, Bothered & Bedeviled, the Warners mess with the Devil himself.

Satan is a good guy in the Australian satire Go to Hell! (1997) by Ray Nowland; which has fun with the Ancient Astronauts trope. God (actual name: G.D.) is an alien Corrupt Corporate Executive planning to set up a colony on Earth and rule it, but is opposed by his rebellious teenage son Red who helps the apes evolve and teaches them free will.

Real Life

Some religions are based around him. As a general rule though, they don't sacrifice goats or anything. In fact, many don't even worship him specifically. La Veyan Satanists don't even strictly believe in Satan, but rather hold him up as a symbol of humanity adhering to our nature. The idea being that one should do whatever makes them happy, both altruistically and not. As a general rule, most flavors of Satanism are focused on worshipping one's self rather than the actual devil.

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